Lil Wayne suffered a scary sounding series of seizures last week and was rushed to hospital on two separate occasions, on Tuesday and again on Wednesday after he had been released. TMZ made it sound incredibly serious and as if it were touch and go for Wayne. He was supposedly placed in a medically-induced coma and was in the intensive care unit. Subsequent details and tweets from Wayne and his close friends have revealed that he’s on the mend and that his condition was not as dire as reports claimed. He’s been visited by Nicki Minaj, Drake and Birdman, and his mom tweeted that he should be home soon. Thank goodness. Here’s more, from CNN:

Grammy-winning and multiplatinum-selling rapper Lil Wayne suffered a seizure and “is recovering,” his record label’s publicist said Friday.

The New Orleans artist arguably occupies the highest rungs of the hip-hop world, but he shares them with fellow rapper Drake, who hails from Toronto.

Drake appeared at the Los Angeles hospital, where Lil Wayne is being treated, with an entourage of Wayne’s friends. They pulled up chairs in the hallway near his room and set up a vigil.
Twitter has lit up with rumors, spreading fears of the worst for Wayne’s outcome, but a Tweet in his name attempted to calm the tempest.

“I’m good everybody,” read a message from Lil Wayne’s Twitter account. “Thnx for the prayers and love.”

While acknowledging a medical issue, members of the New Orleans artist’s camp have shot down reports that he was near death.

“Dont believe the nonsense about comas and tubes to breathe … that’s false!!” tweeted Mack Maine, the president of Lil Wayne’s Young Money label, around 5:20 p.m. (8:20 p.m. ET) Friday.
Sarah Cunningham, a publicist with the Young Money record label, acknowledged that Lil Wayne had a seizure.

The public relations department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Los Angeles hospital where the rapper is reportedly being treated, did not confirm or deny that Lil Wayne is there, per its policy.

Maine didn’t offer much detail, though he did say that he and Lil Wayne had been watching the Syracuse University Orange play Georgetown in the Big East men’s basketball tournament.
“Wayne is alive and well!” the record label president wrote on Twitter.

The rapper’s independent publicist, Kia Selby, said only, “Lil Wayne is doing well.” She strongly denied reports he was in a medically induced coma, as reported by TMZ.

There are reports that Wayne’s condition is due to Sizzurp/Purple Drank, which is codeine-laced cough syrup often abused to get high. Wayne has admitted that he uses the stuff, he raps about it and I remember him talking about it during his interview with Katie Couric in 2009. That was before he went to jail, so you would hope that he would take that as an opportunity to not go back to the stuff. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for him. People have died from Sizzurp abuse, including Wayne’s friend Pimp C, who passed in 2007 at just 33 years old.

All this makes me wonder if he really was in crictical condition as TMZ claimed and if he’s downplaying what happened now that he’s out of the woods. (Hopefully.) If that’s the case I hope for his sake that he’s taking this more seriously behind the scenes. I don’t think this was some kind of publicity stunt as Hollywood Life suggests, that’s way too cynical. A more likely explanation is that it was worse than he wants to let on to the public or maybe even to his friends.

These are photos of Lil Wayne performing in March and July of 2012, and out at a club in August. Credit: WENN.com and FameFlynet

19 Responses to “Lil Wayne on the mend after seizure scare, his label denies that he was in a coma”

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I kind of think he was more serious than he’s going to admit. It’s unusual to be in the hospital for almost a week if you’re “fine” or “recovering” – hospitals and doctors usually like to release patients as soon as possible. TMZ also reported that he had to have his stomach pumped and that he had high levels of Codeine in his system.

I don’t think he was on his death bed. However, his situation is critical, he is in critical condition. TMZ was clearly reporting was their source was telling them. Lil Wayne’s camp has not denied that he is in ICU and what brought him to the hospital. Wayne is addicted to drugs and his body is letting him know he needs to stop.

I believe TMZ if he was good or fine there would be pics of him in hospital.He is probably still in ICU based on the hours his visitors have showed up at Cedars.He,had a similar incident last year w multiple seizures

He’s in day 6 of ICU. There’s no downplaying that aspect of his drug addiction.

The tweets from *friends* are the people that don’t want their money train to leave the station. It’s telling we have heard nothing from an actual family member, like his mother.

I like Lil Wayne and hope he recovers. Active addiction can only lead to 3 things: jails(he’s been there), institutions i.e. hospitals (yep)and death. He may recover, but he was closer to death than most of us would ever want to contemplate.

Excellent post and everything that I have been thinking. I don’t really know much about Lil Wayne outside of the fact that he is a successful young man and it is incredibly sad to think that he could lose his life b/c of his addictions.
When I saw the story of the weekend, I felt compelled to say a prayer for him. I also read up a bit on “purple drank”. I would really like to see him recover and then take a stand against this particular drug. Sadly, I believe many youngsters look up to him and could mimic him (and others they admire) and give “purple drank” a try. It is hard to believe that someone would drink enough of this to endanger their health. I’m sure youngsters don’t google it to check out the dangers. They just emulate their rap idols.

I think Wayne(if that was even really him that sent out tweets) and his people are downplaying the situation because he is probably still on probation and having illegal drugs in his system would be a violation of his parole.

Well, I like him. Not 100% of the time obviously, but I like a lot of his music.
I really hope he is okay.
This sounds weird, but I hope he makes it to a ripe old age. I think he would be a damn interesting and kinda cute old man.
Or….Conspiracy theory
He could fake his death and make tons more money than he already has and retire at the same time. (I really don’t think that’s what is happening!)

TMZ is reporting he’s still in the ICU. Eminem has flown in to visit him so would he go to the trouble if he was going to be discharged? Not sure but it doesn’t look good because if you’re improving you’re taken out of ICU. If you’re not, all bets are off.

Well most drug addicts want out of the hospital as soon as possible so either he is really, really sick or knows he has a problem and is trying to fix himself. This isn’t his first time with seizures if he keeps this up, well, we know the outcome. Hope he gets better. Like his music a lot. Just further proof that money does not buy happiness. So sad that people do that to themselves.

Like others, I believe TMZ and don’t believe Lil’ Wayne’s camp. TMZ has really well-paid sources (who have no problem violating HIPAA laws as long as they’re well-paid, apparently) and they have a good track record. That tweet from Lil Wayne could have been typed and sent by anyone with access to his phone. I highly doubt he’s sending out tweets (with no pics included) from the ICU.

The amount of rappers who’ve been to visit him tells me that he’s near death, unfortunately. If someone was “fine,” and would be leaving the hospital soon, people like Eminem (who is pretty reclusive) wouldn’t have hopped a plane to visit him in L.A.

And yes, the fact that Lil Wayne’s mom (who is legally responsible for all of his medical decisions while he’s in a coma) hasn’t said anything is very telling.

Well if what tmz published is correct, he went from the icu then stable condition and checked out the same day. As I wrote above, I am guessing he checked out against medical advice and will possibly back on drugs very soon. I’m hoping tmz got the story wrong about how sick he was, but hospitalization from heavy drug abuse isn’t a good sign. Your heart also gets weaker when going off drugs for a period of time and back on them again. I hope he goes to rehab.